Alumni spotlight: Luca's journey in innovation and public policy
Explore Luca's journey through UCL's MPA in Innovation, Public Policy, and Public Value where he gained tools to shape global economic strategies with leaders like Mariana Mazzucato and Mia Mottley.
About Luca
Luca Kühn von Burgsdorff, a graduate of UCL's Master of Public Administration in Innovation, Public Policy, and Public Value, shares his journey from exploring traditional economic theories to embracing transformative policy work. He highlights his enriching experience at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, where he gained the tools to challenge conventional paradigms and drive global change. From advising governments worldwide to shaping Barbados’ mission-oriented economic strategy, Luca's career reflects the unique blend of theory and practice offered by the program.
Discovering the meaning of an MPA: Luca's academic background
I hold a double major in Economics and History from McGill University, where my academic foundation was steeped in neoclassical economic theory. I became increasingly dissatisfied with its limitations in answering important real-world questions. My journey led me to explore the work of Mariana Mazzucato. Her book The Entrepreneurial State told a new story about the role of government – one that was different from the stale 20th century narrative of public versus private, big state versus small state. She makes the case that the state has played a crucial part in shaping markets, and that this role must now be reactivated to help us tackle the biggest challenges of our time, from the climate crisis to health inequalities. This is not about big state versus small state, but how a capable and strategic state can work with businesses in a new way around our hardest policy problems. In his great polemic Ill Fares the Land, Tony Judt called this the “discursive battle” of our time. I joined the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) to help fight this battle.
From theory to practice: Choosing an MPA
The Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose stood out to me as more than an academic institute—it is a movement reshaping the paradigms of economic thinking and public policy. The Institute challenges traditional methodologies, offering bold, heterodox perspectives that emphasize the state’s role in creating and shaping markets. Its radical and transformative vision was a natural fit for my intellectual aspirations. The Institute’s reputation as a hub of pioneering thought, spearheaded by Mariana Mazzucato and an exceptional roster of academics, further solidified my decision. The diverse cohort of students, representing various disciplines and regions, added an invaluable element of international dialogue and collaboration, making the MPA at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose an unparalleled choice.
Transforming public policy: Working with global leaders
After I graduated from UCL, I worked with Mariana Mazzucato as her Senior Policy Advisor for three years. This was a special experience, working with governments and organizations around the world to help design, implement, and govern a new approach to policymaking. I now work with Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, and her government on the country’s economic transformation strategy, which we helped to inform over the past two years.
The MPA offered a well-balanced design of theory and practice. The work from academics like Erik Reinert about the alternative histories of economic thought (which unearths the important work from 18th to 20th century economists working on topics not usually covered in traditional economic history courses, such as industrial strategy and national innovation systems) helped to broaden the scope of economic theory. Meanwhile, the module on 'Transformation By Design' equipped us with tools that are missing from other MPA programmes, including system mapping, design thinking, and complexity theory.
An MPA with Impact: University Placement with the UK Space Agency
For the third semester, I did a placement with two MPA colleagues at the UK Space Agency in collaboration with the Satellite Applications Catapult and Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN). The placement came at a worrying time for the space industry, where a shift towards New Space is bringing in many private sector players through unsymbolic partnerships with government, transforming the space sector into a gambling casino. We used the frameworks we learned about in the MPA programme—specifically, the mission-oriented approach—to help our three placement organizations to think through what a new approach could look like and how they can bring it about. Instead of seeing the space industry as an isolated sector, we began with the biggest challenges facing the UK, including the climate crisis, and outlined what the role of the UK space sector is in tackling those challenges, not on its own, but in collaboration with other sectors in the UK economy.
From UCL to global change: The value of a public policy degree
During my MPA, I also compiled and co-authored the Insitute's Mission-Oriented Innovation Network’s (MOIN) 2021 Casebook. The Casebook documents eight stories of governments at the local, national, and international levels who adopted mission-oriented strategies to overcome public sector inertia, inequitable relationships with other economic actors, and a lack of engagement with citizens and communities. By working on the Casebook, I collected first-hand insights from leading practitioners who are using new policy frameworks and approaches to solve difficult policy problems in a creative way.
Mission-oriented thinking: Luca's career in public policy
After completing the MPA, I wanted to apply the ideas and tools I had learned at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and decided to approach the Institute's network of partner organisations. This proved to be an effective strategy. I took a job at the OECD Observatory for Public Sector Innovation (OPSI), which is a member of MOIN, conducting research into public sector innovation trends and working with governments to solve difficult problems using new policy approaches. The role allowed me to learn more about the specific challenges being faces by local, regional, and national governments. It also taught me about the limitations of the OECD, which is slow to adopt new economic thinking, instead marginalising forward-thinking units like OPSI. If we want to make change, then it is most effectively made at the centre of political and organisational power.
After six months at the OECD, I returned to the Institute as Mariana Mazzucato’s Senior Policy Advisor—a post I held from the beginning of 2022 until the end of 2024. I was tasked with supporting Professor Mazzucato in her capacity as an advisor to heads of state and ministers around the world, including the governments of the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, and Barbados, among others. Off the back of this work, I co-authored a report with Professor Mazzucato and Sarah Doyle, her Head of Policy, on Mission-oriented industrial strategy: Global insights, which builds on seven years of work with governments around the world. The report includes lessons from our work with governments partners—on opportunities ranging from healthy and sustainable housing estates in Camden Council to the ecological transition in Brazil—that are advancing new approaches to bring economic, social, and environmental policy goals into alignment at the centre of their growth strategies.
My time in this role coincided with a wave of progressive political parties coming to power in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2022, we worked with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) to write a report out a new development pathway for the region: Transformational change in Latin America and the Caribbean: a mission-oriented approach. To launch the report, I travelled with Professor Mazzucato to Bogota (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Santiago (Chile), meeting with the progressive leaders and their cabinet ministers to brief them on the report’s recommendations. Off the back of this work, UCL IIPP kicked off work with several governments in the region, including Brazil, Colombia, Barbados, and Mexico.
I also supported Professor Mazzucato in her role as the Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water (GCEW), which she led alongside Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Director General of the WTO), Professor Johan Rockström (Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research (PIK)), and Tharman Shanmugaratnam (President of Singapore). Completing the sustainability trilogy that began with the Stern Review on the economics of climate change (released in 2006) and the Dasgupta Review on the economics of biodiversity (issued in 2021), the GCEW provided a fundamental reassessment of the way we manage and value water, and water’s intrinsic role in addressing climate change and other global challenges. We launched our final report, The Economics of Water: Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Good, in October 2024. It was an honor to be part of the team that drafted and prepared this groundbreaking report – a report that has reinvigorated an international effort to tackle the global water crisis.
In March 2025, I start a new role at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. I will work as a Senior Advisor on Missions with Prime Minister Mia Mottley and her government in Barbados. Since January 2023, the Institute has engaged in a strategic partnership with the Government of Barbados and its partners to explore opportunities to align economic growth with critical policy goals. In May 2023, the Government of Barbados and the Social Partnership—a group of leaders from government, labor and business—announced six missions that were informed by our joint work and are now being carried forward into implementation. These missions relate to climate resilience, social cohesion, food and water security, public health and safety, worker empowerment, and digital inclusion. Professor Mazzucato’s report, 'A Mission-Oriented Strategy for Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth in Barbados', which I provided support in developing, summarises this work and key considerations for the implementation of Barbados missions.
Having worked with the government over the past two years, I will now move to Barbados to advise on their mission implementation. The government is advancing the implementation of its six missions by identifying a set of lighthouse projects, setting up an institutional architecture (including a missions secretariat and mission boards), redesigning strategic tools (including public procurement and budgeting), and engaging in a communications campaign to socialise the missions across the country.
Why the Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value MPA stands out
There are many MPA programmes out there, but the Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value MPA at UCL is truly unique. Because of the Institute's commitment to bringing together theory and practice, focusing both on high-quality academic research and high-impact policy work, as a master's student here, you are only one step away from helping to achieve real policy impact. The institute is putting forward a bold, new vision. It is an important part of a bigger movement. It is on the frontlines of the “discursive battle” of our decade. That is why I chose to do the MPA at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. And it is because I did the MPA that I continue to fight.
Discover more about Luca and what he's currently working on via LinkedIn.
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